On Monday afternoon, President Guillermo Lasso offered details of his plan to vaccinate 9 million people for Covid-19 within the first 100 days of his administration. This came after a new platform was launched on Saturday that lets citizens verify the place where they need to go to get their shots.

As he began President Lasso asked for a minute of silence to “honor the memory of the tens of thousands of Ecuadorians who died from the pandemic, family and friends that we have lost.”

He continued by saying, “This is a great effort that we must carry out as an ethical imperative to serve the health of Ecuadorian citizens. It is not only a health and social program. It is also the most important economic program that we can present. 

We need children and young people to return to face-to-face classes. We need all Ecuadorian workers to go to their workplace, use public transport, go to the cinema, to a restaurant, to a disco. We need mothers to leave their homes to go to the markets, with peace of mind, with the assurance that their health is protected.”

The vaccination process “is an open process for all citizens. Here, no one will have privileges”

He also announced that he has not yet been vaccinated, saying that it is imperative that, “the health sector be vaccinated, that the most vulnerable are vaccinated, and then it is our turn, corresponding by our age.”

The President announced that his negotiating teams are managing the acquisition of 18 million Sputnik-V vaccines, through diplomatic being carried out with Russia. He added that approaches are also being made with China for the same purpose.

“You have a president who is going to fight for you in the international world. We are going to insist on our friends in the United States, the United Nations, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Canada and all the countries in the world where vaccines are manufactured, including Argentina and Brazil, to support us with this vaccination process. This is the priority of the National Government: to vaccinate the largest number of Ecuadorians,” added the President.

Corruption in the health system

“The health system was terminated as a bargaining chip for political negotiations,” declared the President. “We are going to work, Mr. Vice President and Mrs. Minister of Health, efficiently. Because being inefficient is bordering on the boundaries of corruption. We cannot retire from our daily offices if we do not reflect on whether we have done everything necessary to take care of every last penny of Ecuadorians. We have to review the medicine purchasing system. Corruption rides in the system, both in the Ministry of Public Health and the IESS.”

Request for support to entrepreneurs

The President concluded his message with an address to the businessmen of Ecuador. “A private company committed and in solidarity with Ecuadorians. It is time to demonstrate that solidarity, concretely, precisely, immediately. You can. And we will find a way to facilitate the negotiation of vaccine doses with private money, which would mean speeding up the process of buying doses. Donate vaccines. You can do it. You also have a moral obligation to the Ecuadorian people. From this we all have to leave together, brother and sister, embraced. Donate vaccines, without conditions,” he reiterated.

An apology to the teachers

Health Minister Ximena Garzón was the first to intervene during the announcement. She began by apologizing to the teachers who could not receive their second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine this Monday, May 31, 2021. She said that it was a coordination error between the health authorities. The teachers who received the first dose a month ago should not have been summoned for Monday; they must wait 54 days for the second dose.

What will happen to foreigners outside the electoral roll and Ecuadorians with registered domicile abroad?

The Vice President of the National Electoral Council Enrique Pita stated that the plan contemplates “an electoral registry” of more than 13 million people. “In this register are not the almost 600,000 Ecuadorians who had not voted in the last three processes.” He also mentioned foreigners who were not on the electoral roll for the last elections.

“A link is being enabled with which that citizen who does not appear in the vaccination registry will be able to proceed” to enter their data in the platform, “in such a way that it can later be included in the vaccination plan.” In this sense, he said that so far there are more than 30,000 registered updates.

Pita also mentioned that 7 million inquiries have been received on the web portal for verifying entry into the system for the vaccination plan.

“Vaccinate 9 million in 100 days”

The Vice President of the Republic, Alfredo Borrero, said that “we are initiating an unprecedented vaccination plan in this period of time, where the vaccination policies are simply dictated but the vaccination policy is not intermingled. We all have the obligation to vaccinate 9 million in 100 days.”

How is the vaccination plan structured?

Last Sunday, the new officials of the Ministry of Health published the vaccination schedule for adolescents, youth and adults. The authorities have enabled 950 brigades and more than 300 vaccination centers distributed in the 24 provinces of the country.

The general schedule is presented in the following table:

Vaccination Phases
May 31 to June 15	June 15 to July 15	July 15 to August 30	September 1 to 5
Over 65 years old	People from 50 to 64 years old	People from 16 to 49 years old	Any people not previously vaccinated
Health personnel	People who work in strategic sectors	Migrant population
People from 50 to 64 years old, with serious chronic conditions, disability and chronic diseases.	People from 16 to 49 years old with serious conditions, disability and catastrophic illnesses
People who work or live in conditions of high risk of contagion

 

From this Monday, second dose vaccinations will continue for those who were vaccinated in the first week of May. Those over 80 who have not yet received the vaccine will also be vaccinated.

According to health authorities, in the coming weeks 3.7 million doses of vaccines will arrive from three different pharmaceutical companies: Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

Thru last Friday, May 28th, the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) registered a total of 2,172,656 people vaccinated against Covid-19. Of these, 1,538,178 received the first dose and 634,478 completed the second dose.